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Comment by l3x

6 days ago

Recent article on him in the London Review of Books, exploring his rightward turn as he grew older:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/tony-wood/why-did-he...

47 comments

l3x

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andrepd  6 days ago

That's pretty much the least interesting thing you could possibly say about the author.

tirant  6 days ago

Many prominent figures in Latin America and Spain turned away from socialist and communist positions after experiencing their effects: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Octavio Paz (also Nobel Prize), Fernando Savater, Jorge Edwards, Jorge Luis Borges, Teodoro Petkoff...

briandear  6 days ago

Fairly biased article:

“In 2018, he celebrated Lula’s imprisonment in Brazil on dubious corruption charges, and the following year exulted in the right-wing coup that deposed Evo Morales in Bolivia. Since then he has voiced his support for far-right candidates such as José Antonio Kast in Chile and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil…”

“Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

Did Lula not do that? The claim is that Lula was targeted to keep him out of the election. Seems exactly the motivation for the various charges against Trump. Are charges dubious only when the right does that against the left? Marine Le Pen is another recent example of “dubious” charges being ok as long as it’s only going left against right.

Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

Does anyone actually do any neutral reporting or analysis? It seems that anyone to the right of JFK is “far right” while anyone to the left of Marx is “left leaning.”

More importantly, does anyone care any more? Seems like tribalism has gotten much worse over the past few years. The truth is, in the example of Lula is that is is/was very corrupt, but that he’s a leftist seems to excuse that.

  • ggus  6 days ago

    Bolsonaro termed "far right" seems to be on the mark though. The guy praises military dictatorship, with many military figures in his government. He targeted the press and judiciary as enemies of the nation, and so on.

    Lula hasn't nationalized industries, hasn't seized wealth, or even tried to, so "far left" doesn't seem to be as fitting. Where are the burnt churches?

    Now, about corruption, I'm pretty sure neither shine, but that's Brazil for you. Wasn't the Bolsonaro family found to have bought around 50 properties in cash? Smells about as corrupt as the other side, sadly.

  • simiones  6 days ago

    Lula's convictions were all overturned by the Supreme Court, so no, we shouldn't believe that he did the things he is accused of. Note that Bolsanaro was already in power when this happened, so there is little reason to suspect him of wielding power over the courts or anything like that.

    And just because you're opposing a far right extremist like Bolsanaro doesn't make you a far left politician. For example, Le Pen is a far right extremist politician, but Macron is definitely not far left (though Jean-Luc Melanchon, the third place in the previous election, could rightly be called a far left candidate).

    • derektank  6 days ago

      >Bolsanaro was already in power when this happened, so there is little reason to suspect him of wielding power over the courts or anything like that.

      Bolsonaro had only made one appointment to the Supreme Federal Court at the time of the judgement in favor of Lula in 2021, while 7 of the 11 had been appointed by Lula or Dilma Rousseff. Yes, Lula was not in a position to pressure the supreme court as president but I don't think one should assume he had zero influence either. I'm not intimately familiar with Brazilian politics though and wouldn't want to unfairly imply any of the judges were in any way corrupt so I'll just leave it at that.

  • gota  6 days ago

    Lula is not far left by any reasonable definition of both "far" and "left"

    > Did Lula not do that?

    I'm not an expert and not that knowledgeable about the case but it seems to me the accusation -famously- stated things like "We have no hard proof" (...) "(but) we are convinced he did it"

    Again - if the accusation states 'We have no proof', under assumption of innocence, yeah; he "didn't do it"

  • SettembreNero  6 days ago

    there's nothing dubious about Le Pen, she was found guilty of embezzlement for €3millions of public funds.

    • billfor  6 days ago

      It’s not dubious but it’s not equal justice. The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, was found guilty of transferring €403 million from EU taxpayers to a certain tycoon, but she did not receive a verdict and now runs the ECB.

      2 replies →

  • pasquinelli  6 days ago

    > Does anyone actually do any neutral reporting or analysis?

    no, of course not, what a silly question. you think people are falling over themselves to tell you how things are for your sake?

  • thiagoharry  6 days ago

    > Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

    Yes, since nobody yet proved that the apartment was Lula's apartment. And tt was discovered several problems with Lula's charges, which was judged by a person that later was rewarded by Bolsonaro with a job as minister.

    > Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

    Lula is not far left, but center left. He is a social democrat at best, not a communist.

  • owebmaster  6 days ago

    > "Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras

    is it also called a bribe when someone pay for it? I think it is called lawfare

    > Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

    Is lula exalting Stalin and trying to install a proletariat dictatorship?

  • scythe  6 days ago

    >Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

    Bolsonaro was such an unbelievably terrible president that The Economist, that infamous right-wing rag (full disclosure: I am a long-time subscriber), endorsed Lula against him in 2018. If you're going to complain "does anyone care any more?" about a loss of common sense in politics, you probably shouldn't pair that complaint with a defense of Jair Bolsonaro, of all people.

  • caioariede  6 days ago

    You lost it at the far left/right part. Lula is far left only for the people who believe in the fight the communism plot. For the majority, he is much more aligned with the center, so called “centrão”, so much that neither the leftists are pleased with him anymore.

  • JadeNB  6 days ago

    > Seems exactly the motivation for the various charges against Trump.

    I think that you can conspiracize both, or regard both as normal judicial process, but, if you say that it's just fair play against Lula and conspiracy against Trump, then I think that you are just aiming the hypocrisy in the other direction.

  • next_xibalba  6 days ago

    The media's use of the the term "far right" for democratically elected politicians is actually a really useful tell. They are unintentionally signaling how biased they are.

    Either: "This politician, who received millions of votes is very far right of me (I am very far to the left)."

    Or: "I am the center of the left-right spectrum, and this politician who received millions of votes is quite a ways to the right of me (the center), so they are obviously far right."